Honor and Sacrifice

A Japanese-American War Hero's Family During WWII

Honor and Sacrifice tells the complex story of a Japanese immigrant family ripped apart by WWII. The Matsumoto family included five sons; two who fought for the Americans and three who fought for the Japanese. The eldest, Hiroshi (Roy), became a hero, fighting against the Japanese with Merrill's Marauders, an American guerrilla unit in Burma. He was born near Los Angeles, educated in Japan, and became a hero when he used his Japanese language skills and military training to save his surrounded, starving battalion deep in the Burmese jungle. At the same time his parents and sisters were living in their family's ancestral home, Hiroshima. The story is told by Roy's daughter Karen as she discovers her father's work in military intelligence, kept secret for 50 years.

Winner of the 2014 Erik Barnouw Award from the Organization of American Historians

Winner of the 2014 History In Progress Award from the American Association for State and Local History

"Filmmakers Lucy Ostrander and Don Sellers' powerful documentary tells the story of Roy Matsumoto, one of many Japanese Americans who enlisted in the U.S. military while detained in Japanese Internment during World War II....Decorated for heroism, Matsumoto was eventually sent to postwar Japan, where he found relatives still alive in Hiroshima despite the nuclear bomb attack that had devastated the city. Interweaving archival footage and family photographs to illustrate this compelling story, along with an interview of the elderly Matsumoto, Honor & Sacrifice underscores the many internal conflicts and ironies experienced by Japanese-American enlistees, from having to prove their loyalty while confined within the U.S. to fighting an enemy that often (as in Matsumoto's case) literally included one's brothers from the old country. Highly recommended." -T. Keogh 3.5 Stars - Video Librarian

"A riveting story compellingly told, Honor & Sacrifice uncovers a tragedy of war--the breakup of families and the tests of conflicting loyalties. Japanese Americans serve in the U.S. military to defend freedom while their families are interned, brothers fight in opposing armies, and the atomic bomb levels an American soldier's family home. There is no glory in wars." -Gary Okihiro, Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

"Superb!! Roy Matsumoto, a Kibei Japanese American, is caught in a Kafka-esque situation between Japan and America but rises to the height of exceptional achievement as a member of Merrill's Marauders during World War II. His remarkable story crisscrosses allied and enemy nations and military forces where his war-time actions led to the safety of a battalion of American soldiers. Beautifully presented, Honor and Sacrifice contains unique photographs of pre-World War II Japanese American home life, pre-and post-war Hiroshima, and the wretched travails of war-time combat in Burma." -Tetsuden Kashima, Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of Washington

Stourwater Pictures offers a 35-page curriculum on this film for educators on their website which is free and downloadable at http://honordoc.com/teach.html.

Comments (3)

Roy's story of courage and survival is quite remarkable, and clearly and succinctly depicted in this film. A must see for classes examining WWII in the Pacific or Japanese-Americans.

Anonymous

Boston University•1 year ago

Moving and thought-provoking. Thank you for this important work and preserving a legacy.

Lucy

Stourwater Pictures•2 years ago•Filmmaker

We often uncovered secrets when making films, but the revelations in this documentary astonished us. We intended to tell the story of an unlikely hero, but the production became a discovery of the suppressed struggles of three generations of a Japanese-American family from Hiroshima divided ...Read more

We often uncovered secrets when making films, but the revelations in this documentary astonished us. We intended to tell the story of an unlikely hero, but the production became a discovery of the suppressed struggles of three generations of a Japanese-American family from Hiroshima divided by World War II. Their journey is an embodiment of the immigrant experience, ultimately revealing the extraordinary strength that America gains from its diversity.

Related videos

They bravely served their country during some of the most brutal battles of World War II so we could have the freedom we enjoy today. But, in an instant, they were lost to their families forever. For more than 60 years, the whereabouts of these fallen heroes remained a mystery...until…

A documentary on the responses of Japanese Americans to World War II -- from enlisting in a much-decorated unit for combat in Europe, to serving as military interrogators, and for some, refusing to serve in the armed forces and challenging the constitutionality of the forced internment of their families.
CINE…

There was a little-known war in Samoa, when armies of thousands - one side backed by the Germans and the other by the Americans and British - fought out a dynastic conflict. One notable clash was the Battle of Tagalii, when an allied force of 400 (including 118 sailors and…

At 9:00 a.m. on February 19, 1945, the soldiers of the United States Marine Corps 5th Division, H Company lowered themselves down rope cargo nets into landing crafts rocking in five-foot seas. They were less than a mile from the shore of the remote South Pacific island of Iwo Jima.…

Episode One "A Necessary War" December 1941-December 1942
After a haunting overview of the Second World War, an epoch of killing that engulfed the world from 1939 to 1945 and cost at least 50 million lives, the inhabitants of four towns -- Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; Waterbury, Connecticut; and Luverne,…

The Medal of Honor is awarded for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States.
This 6-part documentary chronicles the highest award given to military personnel for…

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Empire rapidly surged out into south-east Asia and the Central Pacific. Triumph & Defeat '41 - '45 tells the story of the initial Japanese successes and then the relentless fight back by the Allies across the vast distances of the Pacific. Allied…

Episode Seven "A World Without War" March 1945-September 1945
In spring 1945, although the numbers of dead and wounded have more than doubled since D-Day, the people of Mobile, Sacramento, Waterbury and Luverne understand all too well that there will be more bad news from the battlefield before the war…

During World War Two, 8000 Australians died in captivity under Japanese rule. Those who survived remember the starvation, disease and trauma to which they were subjected. In Every Inch of the Way survivors of the camps, Vivian Bullwinkel, Dr Ian Duncan, Roy Whitecross and Reg Nossiter describe their experiences during…

Episode Six "The Ghost Front" December 1944-March 1945
By December 1944, Americans have become weary of the war their young men have been fighting for three long years; the stream of newspaper headlines telling of new losses and telegrams bearing bad news from the War Department seem endless and unendurable.…

Among the ten Japanese Internment that imprisoned 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, Tule Lake Segregation Center was the site for over 18,000 "disloyals." Fifty years later, seven former internees discuss their past and how they came to terms with their identity, politically and socially, both during and after…

Produced by Emmy Award-winning filmmakers, Nagasaki Journey is a powerful, yet hopeful look at the immediate and continuing aftermath of the atomic bomb droppedAugust 9, 1945 on Nagasaki, Japan.
The film tells the moving personal stories of two Japanese survivors and a U.S. Marine, who was one of the first…